


From livejournL

by marleystcyr



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 19:42:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13060848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marleystcyr/pseuds/marleystcyr





	From livejournL

Made of Silver, Not of Clay

Brendon stopped singing on the day that the world just…stopped.

That may have been slightly backwards. The world didn’t really stop, per se. It just stopped being the world that Brendon had always known it as.

He woke up to the realization that he’d forgotten to shut his blinds the night before, so the early morning sunlight was streaming in and flooding the room. Eyes still half-shut, he sat up, closed the blinds, and then burrowed beneath the covers again to go back to sleep.

When he woke up the second time, he rolled over and squinted at the clock. The digital screen was blank, and he was confused for a moment before deciding it must have somehow gotten unplugged. Since no one had come in to wake him for church yet, he shrugged, flopped back down, and shut his eyes again.

This time he couldn’t quite fall asleep, so eventually he shoved the covers down, figuring that he may as well get up and get ready, since it couldn’t be that early if he had woken up on his own.

Padding out of his room, he headed straight for the shower, calling over the stair rail, “I’m up, hope you’re making pancakes!” He couldn’t hear his mom respond, but he could imagine her rolling her eyes with fond exasperation, just like she always did when he was being particularly exuberant.

Despite being the only one of his siblings left at home, he felt awkward walking out of the bathroom with only a towel around his waist, so he pulled his pajama bottoms back on once he was out of the shower. After drying off he dropped his towel onto the floor and ran a comb through his damp hair, then opened the door.

Brendon still hadn’t gotten used to how quiet it was as an only child, even though he probably made enough noise to compensate for at least one or two siblings. He hummed obnoxiously as he headed for the kitchen without changing out of pajamas, figuring that if he managed to spill anything on himself, at least he wouldn’t be in his church clothes yet. 

It was when he passed the window at the landing of the stairs that he realized something was off.

The sun was way too high for it to still be morning, which meant they should have been at church hours before. Brendon’s family never missed church. Tentatively, he called, “Mom? Dad?” as he jogged the rest of the way down the stairs.

There was no reply, and when Brendon got into the kitchen, it was empty. 

“Huh,” he said, leaning against the doorframe to take stock of the situation. For a wild moment he wondered if they’d actually left without him—if the conversation from the previous night had actually stuck with them. It seemed unlikely, considering that his father had been pretty adamant when telling Brendon that it was church, or hell. Brendon was still proud that he’d refrained from answering that.

Just to make sure, he opened the door to the garage. The purple minivan was still securely in its place.

Maybe, he thought, there was some kind of emergency, and they had to be picked up. And they didn’t want to wake me up.

If that was the case, there would be a note somewhere to explain, even just something quick scribbled out, because Mrs. Urie wouldn’t have wanted Brendon to worry. Furthermore, for an emergency she’d want to make sure he was praying.

When he turned around, his attention was caught by the clock on the microwave.

It was dark, dead.

Stomach sinking, he tore his eyes away from the blank digital face. Despite the dawning realization that no, there wasn’t going to be any kind of note, he resolutely set to scouring every horizontal surface for some kind of sign indicating where his family had gone. Then he checked the doors for Post-its, as well as the home phone and his cell phone for messages on the answering machines.

There was absolutely nothing.

Fighting the panic that was threatening to set in, Brendon forced himself to think rationally. If something had happened, he needed to call someone. Flipping his cell back open, he found his parents’ number and tried that one first, even though he wasn’t really expecting an answer.

It rang seven times before going to voicemail, and Brendon didn’t bother to leave a message. Next he tried each of his siblings, his grandparents, his pastor, three of his “friends” from youth group, and then, to get outside the church, even called the guy in a few of his classes who he talked with music about on occasion. None of them picked up.

By the time he ended the call to Brent, Brendon was starting to feel sick. It was as if…

as if everyone else in the world had just disappeared.

The moment the thought took actual shape in his mind, Brendon wished he hadn’t let it. Still gripping his phone, he walked outside and over his mom’s poppies to the house next door. His mom would kill him. Brendon kind of hoped that her mom-radar would tell her that her son was being a delinquent and make her materialize there. He wouldn’t even mind the lecture about the flowers.

On the neighbor’s porch he eyed the door, pounded on it, hard, then paused to listen for footsteps. There were none, and he knocked again, banging his closed fist against the unrelenting wood. Eventually he switched to kicking, which backfired, because he hadn’t bothered to put on shoes before he left the house.

Shoulders slumping in defeat, he walked out into the middle of the street, took a deep breath, and screamed as loudly as he could.

When his throat started to burn, he stopped, and was met with complete silence. That, more than anything, was so overwhelmingly disturbing that Brendon actually had to sit down, right there on the asphalt, and try not to hyperventilate.

After a few minutes he stood, calmer, and walked slowly back into his house, automatically locking the door behind him. It seemed bigger than he remembered, and he shivered involuntarily.

Without anyone to see him, Brendon didn’t bother getting dressed. He poured himself a bowl of cereal and started to reach for the orange juice, but then, on a whim, grabbed a Root Beer instead. He wasn’t ever allowed them in the morning, or late at night, but no one could tell him no.

Hands full, he wandered into the living room, where the curtains were still drawn, since no one was there to open them. Brendon wondered if this was the world he’d always lived in, with everyone else gone, or if he had been removed to somewhere completely different. Setting his food down on the coffee table, he ran a hand along the back of the piano in the corner, then pulled the coffee table close and started to play.

First he just warmed up, taking bites of cereal in between scales, and by the time he was done with his food he’d moved on to old, familiar songs, mainly from church. Once he ran out of those, he went onto rock songs. He liked those better anyway. He didn’t sing, though—it just didn’t seem right. 

Sometime later (without clocks it was hard to judge time), he was hungry enough to get up again and put a tray of Bagel Bites into the oven. He ate them at the table, along with a glass of milk, and when he was done he put his dishes into the dishwasher. After clearing the table, he went back to the piano and slid onto the smooth bench, cracking his fingers and then bending them back before poising them over the piano keys again.

He’d gotten three-quarters of the way through his repertoire of Beatles songs by the time he decided to go to bed. The sun had been down for…awhile. Brendon really wasn’t sure. He’d never realized before how hard it would be to tell time without any clocks. 

Since he’d never bothered to get dressed, he just walked upstairs and dropped into his unmade bed, burying himself under the covers. Twenty minutes later he got back out of bed and went to his closet, where he pulled out Mr. Fluffy, a ratty old teddy bear with a patched foot who Brendon only took out on really necessary occasions.

The situation at hand seemed like a necessary occasion, and Brendon fell asleep with Mr. Fluffy clutched in his arms.

Maybe he’d kind of expected the world to be back to normal the next morning, but when Brendon woke up, his house was just as empty as before. He hadn’t bothered to check the day before, but today he attempted to turn the computer on. It refused to start up. His phone was still working, but he hadn’t realized until now that the clock on it was no longer there. 

The second day, he finished the Beatles and started in on the Beach Boys. The third day, it was Red Hot Chili Peppers. Then Christmas songs, because he knew them. Then a smattering of whatever he could think of. On the sixth day, he started in on classical music. Once he’d exhausted that, he started making things up.

 

Eventually, he realized that if he was going to survive, he needed to go and get more food, and possibly a few other necessities, like toilet paper and dish soap. He hadn’t bothered to get dressed since he’d woken up that first day, so he peeled off his pajamas and threw them straight into the washing machine. It still felt strange to walk through the house naked, but at the same time, it was oddly freeing.

He yanked on jeans and a T-shirt, combed his hair and brushed his teeth, and grabbed his wallet and keys on the way out the door. The radio wasn’t working and he hadn’t brought CDs, so he made the ten minute drive in complete silence. Radio silence, he thought to himself, and then laughed aloud, the sound startling him.

It was rare that he was able to park and not have to walk halfway across the parking lot, so he pulled up right in front of the store with a feeling of triumph. He took a cart when he went inside, pushing it up and down the rows as quickly as possible, because the empty supermarket was even more eerie than his empty house.

As Brendon prepared to leave, he went on autopilot straight to the check stands, and was halfway through pulling out his wallet when he realized there was no one there to pay. Still, it felt too much like stealing for his Mormon-influenced conscience to accept, so he pulled out several bills and stacked them neatly on the conveyor belt.

Out at the car, he reflected that he probably should have put the groceries into bags inside, to make it easier to pack the car. He’d gotten almost everything in when something occurred to him, and he slowly looked back around at the store again.

Five minutes later he was back at the van, two bottles of Coke and a can of instant coffee cradled in his arms. What good was living in an empty world if Brendon couldn’t even have a little caffeine?

As it turned out, coffee was kind of disgusting, like drinking mud. Brendon sat on one of the kitchen counters, kicking his heels lightly against the milky brown wood and making a face at the dark liquid sloshing around in one of his mom’s huge white mugs. 

“How do people drink this all the time?” he asked nobody, scrabbling between his legs until he had found the handle on the silverware drawer and pulled a spoon free. Then he heaped about five spoonfuls of sugar into the mug and tested it again. It was a lot better after that, and he even thought he might like to have some more, sometime. Possibly.

The Coke was a much more successful experiment, all in all. 

 

After awhile, Brendon lost track of the days. They all fused together into one long span of time, slipping from sun to moon and back without Brendon really noticing. He wished that he’d started making marks on the calendar, or scratches in the wall, or something. He’d heard that people used to do that, a long time ago—put little chips into sticks to mark the passing of time. Here, now, every day was the same, with a clear, pale sky, and the sun making it warm enough to go out in short sleeves during the day.

“I wish it would rain,” he said, once, lying in bed at night.

A week later (give or take), it did, but it had been long enough that Brendon thought of it as more of a coincidence than anything that he had affected. 

Either way, the rain brought a welcome respite, and Brendon walked outside for the first time in—hours? Days? Weeks?—and stood in the driveway, tilting his face up to catch the drops on his face. Rain ran in rivulets down his cheeks, the closest he’d come to crying since this whole thing began. 

He didn’t go back inside until he was completely waterlogged, and just before he did, he told the clouds above him, “I still don’t believe in you.”

The next day, the clouds cleared up, and the weather was bright and beautiful again.

Brendon mostly just played the piano. He made things up all the time now, only playing music that he’d known before on rare occasions, but he never wrote down the songs that he created, because there was no one to show them to. When he wasn’t doing that, he read, all the books he could find in his house first. Sometimes he went grocery shopping, and didn’t leave money anymore. Mostly he just existed.

 

He wondered if he was eventually going to go insane. Then he decided that if he was, he may as well make the most of it.

Ten minutes later, he was walking up to the big, glass doors leading into the mall. Steeling his nerve, he pulled them open and slipped inside. The grocery store’s emptiness was nothing in comparison to the silence that stretched out in every direction around Brendon.

Determined to ignore it, he walked through Penney’s slowly, touching soft shirts and sweaters. None of it seemed appealing, and he kept going until he reached the girls’ department. Then he paused, tempted.

He’d cherished a secret wish ever since a concert he’d gone to in ninth grade to be one of those guys who could pull off tiny, tight jeans and baby doll T-shirts. His mother would have killed him if he’d ever tried, but now he had his opportunity. Slowly he pulled a pair of pants off the rack, holding them up to his hips. 

Starting to turn towards the dressing rooms, he realized that there was no one to see anyway, so he unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his pants right in the middle of the department store, feeling daring. Then he stripped his shirt off over his head, for good measure, and grabbed the black girl jeans again.

Slowly he ran his thumbs over his sharp hipbones, unsure if they’d always been like that and he’d just never noticed, or if he’d lost weight. For the first time in a long time, he was tempted to jerk off, but he decided he’d have time for that later.

The first pair of jeans he tried on were too small, but the second ones he was able to squeeze into with some struggling and wiggling of his hips. He had to suck in his stomach a little when he buttoned them, and his boxers were a little bit bunched up, but when he looked in one of the full-length mirrors decorating the store, he smiled a little at the person reflected back at him.

Next he contemplated the shirts, settling on a simple white one that hugged his chest closely, and layering a purple hoodie on top of it with a fleeting grin. Finally he walked into the shoe section, already knowing what he wanted, and grabbed gray plaid Vans. As he headed towards the actual mall, he felt more like himself than ever before.

He knew that his eventual destination was Hot Topic (the Devil Store, as his mom used to call it), but he wasn’t in any hurry to get there. Instead he ambled along, weaving in and out of shops, and had just stopped speculatively in front of Sephora, thinking that maybe he could teach himself how to use makeup, just to round out the effect of the clothes, when he caught the sound of something moving, from just around the corner.

At least, that’s what he thought he’d heard. The noise, a slightly scraping, like someone scuffing their foot on the ground, didn’t come again, even though he strained his ears to hear. Heart in his throat, Brendon waited, counting to sixty twice before he let himself edge a little closer.

When he rounded the corner formed by a jutting shop wall, he stopped short, eyes going wide. He thought, Yeah, I’ve actually gone insane, because there was no way that now, now, he’d finally found another person.

It was a boy, standing several yards away. He had his head bent so that Brendon couldn’t see his face, brown hair falling in a sleek sheet around it, and a hat perched on top of it. From what Brendon could tell, he looked almost as if he was dressed up for some old-fashioned event, with tight gray slacks and boots, a darker peacoat layered over them. Brendon couldn’t see his shirt, but could see that the boy had on arm warmers and fingerless gloves, and when he moved a little, Brendon thought he caught a glimpse of a rosette on his lapel.

Something about him was mesmerizing, and Brendon stood still, just watching him. He was standing in the center of a sea of fabric, and when he held up another piece, Brendon realized that they were all silk scarves, knotted together in a long tail that wrapped around and around him. He fondled the fabric, touching a piece up to his cheek and giving a tiny sigh that wasn’t audible from where Brendon was standing.

After attaching this last scarf to the train, the boy gathered up the long rope into his arms and walked over to where the walkway he stood on overlooked the first floor of the mall. He began nimbly tying one end of the scarf rope to the banister, and it wasn’t until he started to loop the other end around his neck that Brendon suddenly realized what he was going to do.

“No!” he said, and his voice was jarringly loud in the otherwise grave-silent building. It had been…well, Brendon didn’t know how long, but at the least several days since he’d heard his own voice, and he rocked back a step at the same time that the boy’s head snapped around, shock flashing clear and bright in his eyes.

Now that Brendon could see him clearly, he could tell that the boy was beautiful. His face was delicate and angular, with high cheekbones and hazel eyes. He had eyeliner on, black around his eyes and spiderwebbing out from the corners, where it interlaced with red over the tops of his cheeks, and Brendon thought that it was probably supposed to make him look older, but didn’t.

Taking a few steps closer, slowly, as though the boy was a skittish colt (he looked it, long limbs and nervous eyes, despite his composed expression), Brendon said, “Wait. Don’t—don’t do that. Please.”

“You’re here.”

When the boy spoke, voice stale and rough, Brendon stopped his inching forward for a moment, confused until he realized that the words weren’t meant the way he’d originally taken them. It wasn’t “you’re here,” somehow recognizing Brendon, but rather, “you’re here,” in utter astonishment that there was anyone there at all.

Brendon could understand the feeling.

“Yeah,” he replied, holding out a hand now that he’d edged close enough, “I’m Brendon.”

The boy looked dubiously at his hand for a minute and then took it, his hold surprisingly firm for such a thin boy, who looked so breakable. He coughed a little, clearing his throat, and then said, “I’m Ryan.”

“Ryan.” Brendon rolled the word around in his mouth, and then broke into a delighted smile, unable to help himself. “Ryan. I can’t believe—I didn’t know there was anyone else left. Ryan! I wish I’d known…have you been here the whole time? The whole—what, couple months? Do you know how long it’s been?”

Words overflowed from him, rolling away into the silence, until he finally harnessed his mouth again and forced himself to slow down. Ryan just blinked, looking overwhelmed and a little bit vacant.

He let go of Brendon’s hand and examined his nails, which were carefully manicured, and when he looked up at Brendon again, Brendon thought he looked somewhat amazed. “I’ve been here…” He trailed off, waving a hand in the air to signify some indeterminate amount of time. Frowning, he continued, “I don’t know. Years, maybe. Almost forever. There was this before, once. But now it’s gone. I was going to…”

Brendon waited, but Ryan didn’t finish this time, just stared off into space at a point behind Brendon’s head. He spoke very slowly, as though he wasn’t quite sure how to talk anymore. Maybe, Brendon reflected, he isn’t. If he’s been here that long. He wasn’t sure what he thought of that, if Ryan could have been here—wherever here was—for longer than he had. He’d thought, up to this point, that everything else on Earth had disappeared. Maybe it was just Brendon—and Ryan—who were gone.

Ryan had picked up the tail end of the scarf chain again, and was rubbing it between his fingers, and then against his cheek. Abruptly he turned back to Brendon. 

“I cut off the tips of them so I could feel,” he said urgently, and Brendon blinked.

“What?” he asked, not sure if he wanted to walk closer or step backwards, away. 

Ryan held up one hand, spreading his fingers, and Brendon realized he was talking about his gloves. “I cut off the tips,” Ryan repeated, “I cut them off. They’re velour, but I cut them, because I wanted to feel the silk. I wanted to touch it and feel something before I.”

“Before you what?”

Without answering, Ryan looked over the rail again, lips pressed tightly together.

Swallowing hard, Brendon said again, “Please, don’t.”

When Ryan just gripped the edge of the rail more tightly, peering over at the smooth tiles a story below, Brendon stepped right up next to him, resting a hand on his arm. Ryan flinched like he’d been burned, curling into himself, and Brendon thought that he looked tiny despite being the taller of the two.

Gently he pried the scarves out of Ryan’s hands. Ryan kept his fingers curled, but didn’t resist as Brendon took them. They were extremely soft, fine, and Brendon wondered how expensive they all were. A priceless death. The thought made him feel sick.

“I was just going to…” Brendon was starting to get the feeling that Ryan couldn’t quite say that he’d been planning to kill himself, so he just sighed and held up the string of fabric.

“Look,” he said, “The knots would’ve just come apart. It wasn’t going to hold together anyway. Come on, let’s…let’s go.”

This time, when he tried to touch Ryan, Ryan shied back before he could set a hand on his arm. He spun on his heel, stepping over the mess of silk, and then looked back at Brendon expectantly. Brendon wasn’t stupid. He knew an invitation when he saw one, and he wasn’t going to lose what was apparently the only other person left. He followed Ryan, smoothing his shirt and feeling self conscious, even though he wasn’t the one wearing roses and trying to kill himself.

“Where are we going?” he asked finally, unable to curb his curiosity.

Ryan didn’t look back, just jerked his shoulders in a shrug. Brendon took the hint and shut his mouth, following silently until they got to Macy’s. Ryan wove through racks of clothes until they reached the escalator down to the first floor, which was still running. They took it down, to where the Home section was, and Ryan looked back once to give Brendon the ghost of a closed-mouth smile.

He’s beautiful, Brendon realized, the expression on Ryan’s face making Brendon want to reach out to touch him.

In one of the far corners there were several racks of curtains that had been moved to section off an area, and Ryan pulled one of them back, gesturing for Brendon to go inside.

The fabric whispered back into place as they both stepped in, and Brendon stopped short in surprise. There was a lot more space behind the curtains that he’d initially thought, forming a kind of huge room.

It was, very clearly, Ryan’s room.

The room was structured around one of the huge, king-sized display beds, boasting about eight pillows. The comforter and pillows were a medley of coral, peach, and cream, with a lot of lace and beading. Brendon had a sudden flashing thought of Ryan curled up all alone in the middle of the bed, and it made his stomach clench.

In one corner was a guitar, but Brendon didn’t think it had been touched in a long time. He didn’t see any clothes, which made sense, considering that the entire mall was Ryan’s closet. He didn’t need one in his bedroom. In fact, other than the bed and guitar, the only other things there were spiral notebooks and books.

There were, quite possibly, hundreds of them. There were two bookshelves that were completely full, and books covering the floor in careful stacks all around them. They formed little walls all around the interior, with a single break where the two of them had entered. Brendon looked at them all with wide eyes, and then turned to back to Ryan.

“Do you—” he said, and then had to swallow hard because continuing, “Do you live here?”

Ryan nodded solemnly.

Weakly, Brendon asked, “How long did you say you’ve been…here?”

Ryan looked confused, and then he shrugged again, painting invisible designs in the air with his (very long, surprisingly graceful) fingers. “I—don’t know,” he said finally, “Not always. I don’t think. I think there was something before, but I don’t really remember. Sometimes,” and then his voice got even more melancholy, “I dream about this boy. I think we cared about each other. I think he is what missing someone means. But I don’t remember his name, or his face.”

That was far more than Brendon had asked, and he found himself saying, “I’ve only been here for a few months, I think. I used to live with my parents, and they were really strict Mormons. The last thing I said to them was that I hated their lifestyle, and that they were uptight jerks. I didn’t really mean it—or, well, I didn’t mean that I hated them—but then they were gone, and I miss them. I really do, and I didn’t think there was anyone else here until I met you.”

Lowering himself onto the edge of the bed, Ryan watched Brendon levelly and when he’d finished talking, replied, “I don’t believe in God either.”

Despite that, Brendon thought that Ryan had been listening.

They walked all over the mall together, with Brendon mainly telling Ryan stories about his life to fill the silence. Ryan didn’t seem particularly interested, but he didn’t seem uninterested either, so Brendon kept going.

When night rolled around, Brendon paused near one of the mall entrances and pointed the toes of his shoes in towards each other, saying, “I should probably go home now.”

Ryan didn’t reply, and Brendon took that as his cue to push the door open and call back over his shoulder, “I’ll be back tomorrow, probably, okay? Don’t, um…leave, or anything.” Don’t kill yourself.

The door was swinging shut slowly behind him when he heard Ryan speak, the words pulled abruptly from his mouth as though he wasn’t sure he should be saying them but couldn’t help it.

“You could stay,” he said, and Brendon spun around, catching the door.

“What?” he asked, “You want me to—”

“Stay, yeah,” Ryan repeated, “If you want to. I don’t mind.”

Mutely, Brendon nodded. Yeah, he wanted to stay. At that, Ryan gave him that little half smile again, and they walked side by side back to Macy’s.

When Brendon woke up, Ryan was still asleep, and Brendon was burrowed in next to him, one arm slung over Ryan’s waist. It was the way that he normally slept with Mr. Fluffy, so it didn’t surprise Brendon at all. He didn’t bother to move away, and a few minutes later, Ryan stirred, rolling over to look at him.

For a moment Brendon thought that Ryan was going to be angry, or frightened, but instead he just sat up, looking at Brendon with something like interest. His makeup was all smudged across his face, and Brendon thought, yet again, that Ryan was really gorgeous. 

“Good morning,” Brendon said, his voice breaking a little on the last syllable from morning hoarseness. 

Ryan kept staring, and then he leaned in a little closer. Confidentially, he told Brendon, “Your hair is kind of long.”

Surprised, Brendon reached up to run a hand through his hair. He hadn’t bothered with trimming it since before the world had become….this, and Ryan was right, it was shaggy. The back was long enough to touch his collar and curl up a little, and his bangs were almost obscuring his eyes. “Yeah,” he admitted, “I guess it is. I haven’t really had any motivation to cut it, you know?”

Eyes bright, Ryan offered, “I could do it for you. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”

Brendon didn’t really care whether Ryan was good at it or not, if it was going to make him look like he still cared about something in the world. “Sure,” Brendon agreed.

Ryan led them back upstairs, stopping among racks of clothes to change. Brendon wasn’t sure if he was supposed to look away or not, because Ryan didn’t seem shy at all about just stripping down to completely naked with Brendon standing right there. Awkwardly Brendon said, “I guess I should…uh…I guess I should too.” 

Halfway into a fresh pair of boxers, Ryan just blinked at him and shrugged. Brendon quickly averted his eyes and found a different shirt, yanking it on with his back to Ryan. The jeans could go another couple days.

They stopped by the bathroom next, where Ryan washed the smudged makeup off of his face and ran a comb through his hair. Then they continued on, back to Sephora. In the back of the store was a small chair, and Ryan gestured for Brendon to sit there. Brendon watched as Ryan produced a small pair of scissors from a drawer, and came back over to position himself behind Brendon, looking over his shoulder at both of them reflected back by the large mirror.

When Ryan finally started actually cutting his hair, his hands were gentle but firm, combing and then clipping slowly. He kept raking his fingers through Brendon’s hair, apropos of nothing, but it made Brendon want to push against them and fall asleep, or maybe purr. It took nearly a half hour (by Brendon’s estimate) before Ryan was done, but once he was, Brendon wanted him to start back up immediately.

“Wait here,” Ryan instructed, and Brendon shifted a little, but did as he was told. 

Ryan moved off, and Brendon watched in the mirror as he disappeared into one of the rows of makeup. He kind of knew what was coming, but he didn’t protest when Ryan reemerged with eyeliner and several colors of eye shadow clutched in his hands. 

The only thing that Brendon wasn’t expecting was for Ryan to come back around to the front of him and think for a moment before seating himself directly in Brendon’s lap, dumping the makeup onto their laps. He cradled Brendon’s face between his hands, thumbs right at the corners of Brendon’s eyes as he studied him.

Clearly while he’d been gone, Ryan had done his own makeup, simpler than the day before, but still lovely, with green blossoming out around his eyes and eyeliner trailing off into small curls at the corners. Brendon stared at the green, grateful when Ryan slipped his thumbs over to press Brendon’s eyes shut.

His hands were sure and steady when he started actually applying the makeup, gentle touches with the eye shadow brush, and bold sweeps of the eyeliners. When Brendon’s eyes were open, he could see that Ryan’s expression was completely impassive, not flickering at all when he reached between them for a new color and his knuckles brushed over Brendon’s increasingly obvious hard-on. 

“There,” he said eventually, sliding backwards off of Brendon’s lap so that Brendon could stand and walk closer to the mirror, admiring the work Ryan had done.

The primary colors were white and gray, delicate swirls against a background of purple that started at his eyebrows and moved all the way down over his cheeks. The last little curl of gray nearly touched the corner of his lips on the right side. Around his eyes, Ryan had done something to overlay the purple with shimmery gold that sparkled every time Brendon turned his head at all.

“Wow,” he breathed, “That’s…Ryan, that’s amazing.”

Ryan didn’t completely smile, but Brendon thought it was a close thing.

 

They fell into a pattern, one where Brendon didn’t actually go back home, and Ryan didn’t have to ask him to stay anymore. During the days they sometimes walked around the mall, talking softly, or sometimes just stayed in the bedroom and read, or (in Ryan’s case) wrote. Once in awhile Brendon would play the acoustic guitar, but he couldn’t convince Ryan to.

During this time, Brendon learned that Ryan’s parents were divorced and he had lived with his dad. He learned that Ryan thought that he had step-siblings, but couldn’t remember for sure, and that Ryan felt like his dad didn’t like him, but couldn’t remember why he thought that. Mostly, he didn’t remember things from Before, as he called it, acting like it was a place instead of a time.

For his part, Brendon told Ryan just about everything, except that he thought that Ryan was beautiful. That he kept for himself, a secret that he kept tucked away for later.

Ryan’s favourite store (after the bookstore) was an antique clothing shop, confirming Brendon’s suspicions that Ryan’s clothing was often not from a department store. It was also the shop where he’d gotten all the scarves that were no longer in a pile on the second floor of the mall, but now hung all over the “walls” of their bedroom. Ryan liked to go into the store and just touch the delicate lace gloves and satin vests, sometimes for hours. Brendon liked to watch Ryan, mesmerized by his soft expression when he was looking at the clothes.

On occasion Ryan would dress Brendon in starched jackets and silk shirts, looking as proud when he finished as if he’d created a work of art.

Next door, there was a little café-type shop that they pretty much ignored. Even though the café was indoors, outside of it were little awnings, and black wrought-iron tables and chairs. In fancy writing the windows proclaimed that the store was called Tea au Lait. It looked like just the kind of place that Ryan would love, so Brendon was shocked when he asked and learned that Ryan had never been inside.

“We have to go, now,” Brendon insisted, and Ryan shrugged, then nodded.

Brendon was right, and Ryan fell in love with it immediately. The best way to describe the inside was “quaint.” Brendon hopped over the counter and found delicate china cups and saucers, painted with butterflies and flowers. The same designs started showing up on both their faces the next day, when, for the first time in awhile, Ryan put more into their makeup than just eyeliner and mascara.

There were probably sixty different kinds of tea offered, and Ryan proclaimed, face dreamy, that they had to try each of them. Brendon didn’t argue.

Since Ryan was the one who figured out how to work the tea press, he was usually the one who made the tea, carrying two steaming cups to wherever Brendon had chosen to sit and slipping in across from him, reverently explaining what the tea was, and what it reminded him of. Brendon pretty much always took his tea with copious amounts of sugar, or sometimes honey, but Ryan considered each new type seriously before adding a little sweetener.

He was so solemn about it, as though adding in the correct amounts of sugar or cream was a matter of life and death. Maybe it was, in his mind. Brendon wasn’t sure. He just knew that he liked watching as Ryan drizzled in cream and then told him, eyes wide and framed by thick lashes, that he wasn’t going to stir it because he preferred to watch the colors blend until you couldn’t tell which of them was taking over the other.

After Brendon moved into the mall (if showing up and never leaving counted as moving in), he was always the one to go get them more food from the market across the parking lot. Once he’d learned it was there, Ryan’s ability to subsist and rarely leave made more sense.

There was a day shortly after they finished all of the (sixty three) kinds of tea that Brendon got back to the bedroom with a bagful of groceries, looked at Ryan sitting in the middle of the bed with his legs folded and his head bent, and announced, “Let’s go somewhere.”

Ryan looked up, startled. “What?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. Brendon still couldn’t do that, and it frustrated him.

“Let’s go. I don’t know where. We’ll just get in the car and drive, get out of this empty city. What’s the point of staying?”

It looked like Ryan was seriously considering asking what the point of going was, but instead he said, “I’ve always wanted to see the ocean.”

“Okay,” Brendon agreed, “We’ll see the ocean. We can go to California.”

Already shaking his head, Ryan said, “East. The Atlantic. Let’s go to the East Coast.”

Anything, Brendon thought, and nodded. “Alright, then. The East Coast. We can leave in the morning.”

Turning around, he slipped out of his shirt, and then his jeans, pulling on pajama pants instead. From behind him, he could hear Ryan undressing also. He always slept just in boxers. When Brendon faced back around to mention something else about their trip, he nearly jumped out of his skin, because Ryan was standing less than a foot away.

“Um,” he said, and Ryan reached out to place a hand on either side of his face, just like the first day before the makeup.

Even though they shared a bed, and woke up tangled together more often than not, during the day there was an unspoken agreement to not touch one another. Really, it was Ryan’s rule, because Brendon was a tactile person, but Brendon respected it. Besides, the distance helped a little to quell the want that rose up every time Ryan was nearby. It amazed Brendon how much having the world empty made it possible to not panic over the thought of wanting a boy.

Now, Ryan ran the pads of his thumbs up and down Brendon’s jaw line, and Brendon shivered involuntarily. Ryan took another step closer, and when he tilted his head slightly, the pressure of his lips stole Brendon’s breath. Eyes shut, Brendon blindly reached to settle his hands on Ryan’s waist.

Ryan pulled back slightly, murmuring, “You want this, right?”

“God. Yes,” Brendon answered, pulling Ryan closer so that their bare chests were pressed together, and covering Ryan’s mouth with his own again.

This time the kiss was deeper, though still slow and languid, so that Brendon felt like he was hovering in the air, watching himself and Ryan. One of Ryan’s hands had found its way into Brendon’s hair, tangling and tugging, and the other was still cupping his jaw. Brendon had had no idea that Ryan wanted this, but he didn’t question it, just rode the moment blissfully.

Then Ryan started walking forward, pushing Brendon back until they reached the edge of the bed. Just before Brendon’s knees buckled and he couldn’t turn back, he held up a hand, saying, “Whoa, whoa, Ryan, are you sure?”

Ryan curled his fingers over Brendon’s shoulders and shoved him down onto the display comforter, climbing up to straddle him. “Yeah, I’m sure. I want this—you,” he said, and he looked down at Brendon and smiled brilliantly.

When Ryan finally settled on top of him, Brendon couldn’t help gasping, dragging his hips up in a slow grind that had both of them panting and writhing. Despite that, Ryan seemed content just to kiss for now, taking his time as though he’d never felt anything like it before. With a start, Brendon realized that it was probably the first time for both of them. Ryan didn’t even remember most of his life Before, so he’d probably been young enough to have never had his first kiss, let alone anything else, and Brendon had been too sheltered.

Reveling in the fact that he was the one to give this to Ryan, Brendon slowly reached a hand between them to palm Ryan’s cock through his boxers. Ryan’s breath stuttered, and he said, “Ah…Brendon…” before giving up and contenting himself with Brendon’s mouth.

Brendon gave himself over to the task at hand, helping Ryan kick off his boxers before rolling them over and continuing in earnest. They were silent except for the harsh little pants filling the air, until Brendon whispered, “You are gorgeous, Ryan. F-fucking gorgeous.” He stumbled a little over the swear word, still not quite comfortable using it.

Ryan licked his parted lips, hips coming off the bed, and said, “Brendon,” just before he came.

They lay together for a few minutes, Ryan’s dry lips against Brendon’s neck, and Ryan petting absently at Brendon’s hip. Brendon held himself still, even though the light touches made him want nothing more than to thrust hard against the thigh that Ryan was pushing between his legs. 

“Hey,” Ryan said, “Hey, it’s okay.” He pushed at Brendon’s shoulder until Brendon rolled sideways, wrapping his long fingers around Brendon’s cock. As he started to stroke, a little too loosely, Brendon bit his lip and moaned. It was so clichéd, but everyone was right that it was so much better than when you touched yourself. This way, he didn’t know what to expect, when Ryan would speed up or slow down, when his hand would trail lower, between Brendon’s balls, or swipe a thumb over the head.

It was only minutes before Brendon was panting, babbling, “Ryan, Ryan, could you do that just a little bit harder?”

Ryan nodded, furrowing his brow as he squeezed his hand tighter, looking less aimless and more purposeful about his motions than before. He ran his free hand through Brendon’s hair, hand inadvertently moving in time with the one jacking Brendon so that the hand that was petting moved a little bit jerkily. “You too, you know?” he said, and it took Brendon’s sex-addled mind a minute to figure out that Ryan was replying to Brendon’s early comment about Ryan being gorgeous.

“Thanks,” he tried to say, but it came out too high, almost keening, and Ryan sped up his hand in response. He wasn’t great at it, but Brendon didn’t mind, because it wasn’t like he had any other experience either. It still felt amazing to have Ryan actually touching him, and bending it to press a kiss to Brendon’s chest.

It was only another minute or so before he came, and Ryan didn’t even seem to mind that some got on the bedspread. Brendon supposed it didn’t matter, since they were going to be leaving anyway.

Still hovering over him, Ryan looked down at Brendon and brushed a lock of hair off of his forehead. In a tone of absolute amazement he said, “Spencer.”

Brendon’s eyebrows shot up, but before he could say, No, Ryan, I’m Brendon. Brendon, Ryan bent down and kissed him again, all precision and warmth. When he pulled back, he said, “I remember. His name was Spencer, and we were best friends.” Scooting down and wrapping himself around Brendon, he nuzzled his face into Brendon’s shoulder and sighed contentedly.

After Brendon could actually function again, they moved under the covers and cuddled there together until they both drifted off.

“We might want to get a different car, or something.”

It had been ages since Brendon had been this embarrassed about driving his mom’s old, slightly beat-up purple minivan, but as he and Ryan carted bags of books out to the parking lot, his cheeks were flushed. They stopped beside the minivan and Ryan tilted his head to one side. “Why?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Well…” Brendon gestured expansively at it, “it’s…it’s kind of…purple. And ugly.”

Ryan sucked one side of his lip into his mouth and blinked owlishly in the sunlight, pulling open the unlocked back door and hefting the bag that he was carrying inside. “So?” he asked, “I want to take it. It’s yours.”

The answer wasn’t what Brendon had been expecting, but he grinned at the ground and kicked a pebble at the front tires. “Okay,” he agreed, “We can take this.”

Ryan really liked things that belonged to Brendon. As they’d packed up books and a couple sets of clothes this morning (they weren’t taking a whole lot, since they could stop and get anything they needed practically anywhere), he’d said quietly, “Can I see your house before we go?” so that was going to be their first stop.

There were a few things Brendon wanted from his house anyway, though not many. While Ryan walked through the house, trailing his fingers over things, Brendon grabbed Mr. Fluffy and a family photo from his room, and then jogged back down the stairs. “Ready?” he asked Ryan, who was examining a dried flower arrangement with interest.

Turning away from the flowers (Brendon thought dried flowers were creepy. They were dead.), Ryan picked at his cuticle and shook his head. “No,” he said, “I want to…I want…you. In your bedroom.”

Heart somewhere around his throat, all Brendon could do was nod as Ryan took Mr. Fluffy and the picture out of his hands and set them on the counter, linking his fingers with Brendon’s and heading for the stairs.

Having Ryan in his bedroom seemed surreal to Brendon, as though his Before world was colliding with his Now in a way that it was never meant to do. Or perhaps it was in the way that it had always been meant to. He wondered if there was a Ryan who existed back in whatever world he’d left behind.

At the top of the steps, Brendon took the lead, pulling Ryan down the corridor past his siblings’ rooms to his own, which had only recently stopped boasting a bunk bed. “This is me,” he remarked, flinging his arms open dramatically.

Ryan looked amused (Brendon had never actually seen him laugh), and moved closer, wrapping his arms around Brendon’s chest. They both went to kiss at the same time, and as a result, their mouths came together harder than intended, and Brendon giggled into the kiss. Everything seemed more acute now that he was kissing a guy in his bedroom, even if his family would never know.

Then (and Brendon had had no idea that Ryan was this strong), Ryan actually picked him up, Brendon’s legs automatically going around Ryan’s waist. Ryan carried him the few steps to the bed, tumbling them both down on top of the covers and rubbing against Brendon, whose thighs were still clamped on either side of Ryan’s hips. 

Both boys moaned, and it felt more real than anything had in the last few months. This was just sex, just BrendonandRyan, not some alternate plane of existence where Brendon didn’t know any of the rules.

Ryan had his hands on Brendon’s face again, and one of his thumbs slipped over to push against the edge of Brendon’s mouth, so Brendon turned his head enough to suck it into his mouth. He could feel Ryan shudder and thrust against him harder, and he had the feeling that this was going to be messy if they didn’t lose some clothes pretty soon. That idea fell by the wayside when he was distracted by Ryan sliding his thumb out and his index and middle fingers in instead.

His fingers tasted faintly flowery, probably from some hand lotion, and Brendon mumbled around them, “Sometime I’m going to suck you off like this.” The words were garbled by his full mouth, but judging by the way that Ryan’s bucking hips got even more desperate, he’d understood well enough.

Impressively, Ryan was still clear-headed enough to take his free hand and unbutton both of their pants and shove their shirts up slightly. He got both of their cocks free, wrapping his hand around both of them together, and it was about four strokes before Brendon was coming with an unintelligible collection of sounds. Ryan followed him pretty quickly, and they actually managed to contain the mess to their stomachs and Ryan’s hand.

“So,” Brendon said, sitting up on his elbows, “We’re going to the ocean together.”

 

It was strange to be driving with absolutely no one else on the roads at all. Judging speed was almost impossible with no one else to measure against. Ryan always drove faster than Brendon did, and didn’t seem to have the same temptations that Brendon did to pause at stop signs when they pulled off the highway to get more gas, or food, or new CDs.

When they could, they kept away from big cities, because it was eerie to be in them when no one else was there. It still felt like they were being watched, so they kept mainly to open areas and small towns.

Brendon hadn’t ever seen this much of the country, and even though Ryan seemed like he would have been happy enough to just drive straight to the East Coast, Brendon insisted on stopping now and then at natural tourist attractions. He wished he’d remembered to bring his camera, and then ended up just picking up a few of them in a Circuit City somewhere in Utah.

As they crossed Colorado, it rained again, real thunderstorms with crackling lightning that lit up the whole sky. Ryan pulled over and climbed out of the car, sitting up on the hood even though Brendon told him that was stupid and he was going to get himself killed. Eventually he had to give up, and clambered up next to him, cheek on top of Ryan’s head while Ryan leaned against Brendon’s chest and they both got soaked.

By this time, Brendon could always tell when Ryan was lying to him, because Ryan always looked him right in the eye when he did. The range of things he lied about was huge—anything from, “I’m not cold,” to “I don’t miss him.” Honestly, Brendon didn’t mind too much, because he knew the difference between the lies and the truth. 

Besides, when Ryan whispered, “I love you,” brushing warm, rain-damp lips against Brendon’s ear, he wouldn’t meet Brendon’s eyes—and he always held Brendon’s gaze when he was lying.

 

It took three days to get across the country, including various stops here and there, and they wound up in New Jersey. Originally Brendon had been aiming for New York, but Ryan decided that was too much of a cliché, so they followed the signs and made it into New Jersey instead.

When they got off the freeway to pick up some more water and peanut butter, they probably would have missed the two boys entirely if they hadn’t been standing, kissing, in the middle of the street. Brendon, who was driving at the time, was so shocked that he whipped the wheel around to the left and stepped on the brakes hard, screeching to a stop just shy of a tree.

“Jesus,” he said, staring through the windshield with shaking hands as Ryan’s jaw dropped.

They scrambled out of the car at almost the same time, meeting in front and catching hands. For awhile, after he’d met Ryan, Brendon had thought maybe there were other people like them out there, stranded, floating through this strange existence. By now, he’d stopped expecting to meet anyone else.

As the two boys on the road detangled themselves, the shorter one moved slightly in front of the other—protectively, Brendon thought. They were both wearing tight jeans and Converse sneakers, and the taller had a Midtown T-shirt and plastic-rimmed glasses, while the other wore a black sweatshirt reading “love can’t save you,” with the hood up.

All the four of them froze for a minute, studying one another, until finally Brendon offered, “Hi.”

Slowly a smile spread over the first guy’s face, bright and open. “Hi,” he replied, “Who are you guys? And where did you come from?”

“I’m Brendon,” Brendon told him, “And this is Ryan. We’re from…Las Vegas, actually.” He nodded towards Ryan, who was looking as though he was trying to remember something, but couldn’t quite. Finally, he just raised a hand and gave a tiny wave.

The guy’s grin grew. “Brendon and Ryan,” he repeated, “Dude, it’s good to meet you guys. I thought it was just us left. Oh. I’m Pete, and this is Mikey. We’re in love.”

The statement was bald and challenging, and Brendon was taken aback. He squeezed Ryan’s hand a little tighter and nodded. “Cool,” he said.

Mikey wrapped his arms around Pete’s neck and scooted a little closer, so that Pete petted his hands absently. “Nice vest,” he said to Ryan, and then, “Do you guys want to come with us? We live just around the corner.”

Hesitantly, Brendon glanced to Ryan, who nodded and said, “Thanks,” shyly. 

Just around the corner turned out to actually be about half a mile or so, and Brendon was kind of wishing that they had driven. That probably meant that he was even more out of shape than usual—unsurprising considering that for the last however long the most exercise he’d gotten was walking across the mall or to the grocery store. It didn’t help that Pete set a brisk pace, and Mikey was apparently deceptively fast. Stealth speed, Brendon thought, and had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

When Pete finally did stop, throwing his arms wide and announcing, “Ta-da!” Brendon could only stare. In front of them was a huge bus—a tour bus, it looked like. It was parked in the otherwise-empty back lot of a shitty bar, paint peeling from being constantly in the sun.

“Um,” he said weakly, “You live…in the bar?”

It seemed like a long shot, and indeed, Pete’s enthusiastic grin dimmed a little. He shook his head. “No. The bus. We live on the bus.”

For the first time, Mikey spoke, voice soft, but still radiating pride. “Pete drove it all the way here from Chicago to find me. He knew that with the rest of the world gone I’d be waiting for him.”

“Always, Mikeyway,” Pete said, both of them turning in towards each other until they looked lost in their own private world. Brendon wondered if that’s what it looked like to observers when he and Ryan talked. Well, assuming there were people to be observers.

Coughing with a touch of embarrassment, Brendon interjected, “Hey, I think I’m going to go back and get our car. It’s got all our stuff in it.”

Pete nodded without taking his eyes off of Mikey, and something prickled in Brendon’s spine. “Okay,” he said distractedly, running a hand through Mikey’s hair, “We’ll be here when you get back.”

“I’m coming with you,” Ryan told him, and Brendon nodded in relief, practically pulling a put-out-looking Ryan away in his haste to get out of earshot.

Once they had a block in between themselves and Pete and Mikey (PeteandMikey, from the impression Brendon was getting), Brendon slowed down a little. “Okay,” Ryan huffed, “What was that about?”

“Don’t they seem…” Brendon grasped for words that would describe it, “Doesn’t something about them seem…off? Not right?”

Face softening, Ryan wrapped an arm around Brendon’s waist so that their hips bumped together when they walked. It made the going a little harder, but Brendon just sighed and held on. “Yeah,” Ryan replied, “But I don’t think it’s dangerous. I think that they’ve been here for a very long time. And that they always will be.”

Brendon stopped walking. “What?” he asked, “Why? And, do you think we’ll always be here?”

An elusive smile slipped across Ryan’s face for a moment before his expression became enigmatic again. “That’s how they are,” he said simply, with a shrug, “And I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.”

Pulling gently at Brendon, he started walking again, and Brendon let himself be led. Earlier that day it had been warm, summery, but it had settled into a chilly evening, and he didn’t have a hoodie on. The sooner they got to the car, the better, in Brendon’s opinion.

Driving back, Ryan fiddled with the CD player, even though it was only a two-minute drive. They ended up staying in the car after they’d pulled into the gravelly parking lot, because from the sounds emanating from the bus, they weren’t going to be welcome inside yet. At least, Brendon assumed so, although he wasn’t sure if Pete and Mikey would even notice their presence.

“Hey,” he said to Ryan, “put on that one song. You know, the…the…I don’t know, the one I told you I liked? The one that goes…”

Without even thinking about it, he started singing. 

Ryan stopped what he was doing and turned his head slowly, eyes wide as he looked at Brendon with something akin to amazement.

“…what?” Brendon asked, as he dropped out of the line that he was on.

Then Ryan was on top of him in the driver’s seat, smiling, really smiling, the corner of his lip cracking a little and bleeding because he so rarely used the expression. Brendon was pretty sure that his heart dipped and tried to burst, at that. As he clambered onto Brendon, Ryan smacked into the horn, and it honked loudly, so that both boys giggled. Giggled. Ryan. Brendon didn’t think he would ever get over that, not ever.

“What, Ryan?” he asked again, still laughing, settling his arms around Ryan’s waist and holding him clear of the horn.

“You can sing,” Ryan replied, breathless, as though it was a complete novelty. “I never knew…you never did that before. I’ve never heard something like that that wasn’t a recording, and all this time you were there.”

“I always sing,” Brendon answered automatically, and then paused, considering. “Well, at least, I used to,” he amended, “I guess I haven’t at all since the…since I ended up here. It just didn’t feel right.”

“Always sing, then, alright?” Ryan said, and it was less of a question and more of a command. “Always, always, Brendon.”

Still grinning, Brendon said, “Yeah. I’ll sing for you anytime, Ryan. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Ryan said, and there was no hesitation. Their eyes met, then, and Ryan leaned in to press a soft kiss to Brendon’s mouth. “I love you always, through every reality.”

A tap on the window startled both of them so badly that Ryan leaned back against the horn again for a good ten seconds. When their moment of frantic terror was over, they turned to see Pete leaning against the door and Mikey hovering behind him, so Brendon rolled down the window with narrowed eyes. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Are you guys coming in, or what?” Pete said, seemingly unaware that he might have interrupted anything.

Disbelievingly, Brendon stared until he realized that Pete was serious, and then sighed, smiled out the window, and said, “Yeah, we are.”

Just as he reached for the car door handle, Ryan took Brendon’s hand and held it up to his face, kissing each fingertip and then the palm. While his mouth was in the middle of Brendon’s hand he whispered, “Later.” The words vibrated against Brendon’s skin, and he shivered.

Since Ryan was on top, he climbed out of the car first, when Brendon right on his heels. They’d delayed long enough that Mikey and Pete had gone back inside, and just before they walked up the few steps to the bus, Brendon pulled Ryan into a lingering kiss that left them both flushed and wearing smiles that indicated happy secrets.

They’d been invited in already, so Brendon opened the door without a second thought, but stopped in the doorway so quickly that Ryan ran into him and then wrapped his arms around Brendon’s waist to keep from falling.

Inside, Pete was standing with his hands thrown up in the air, yelling something that Brendon backed out the door too quickly to hear much of. He thought he caught the name “Patrick,” and something about something being gone, somewhere in the diatribe. Mikey’s voice was battling Pete’s viciously, crescendoing on, “Well sorry, Pete, I love you.”

On the steps behind Brendon, Ryan was standing firmly, not looking as upset as Brendon had expected, but Brendon pulled him closer anyway, holding tight. Ryan made a little soft sound into his ear, and then whispered sensibly, “Maybe we should knock.”

It was such an obvious solution, and Brendon replied, “Oh. Yeah.” Turning back to the door he knocked loudly, and when Pete flung open the door, he looked ruffled and bright-eyed in a way that made Brendon suspect that in the short time between what he’d witnessed of the fight and now, angry words had turned into impassioned, hair-pulling kisses. Brendon did not understand these two.

Then again, he’d gotten used to not understanding things, so it wasn’t really anything new.

“Hey,” Pete said, stretching his mouth into a smile, “Come in. We were going to make pancakes for dinner.” Stepping aside to let them in, Pete almost ran right into Mikey, who caught him by the wrists and whispered something. When Pete turned around to kiss him, it looked so intimate that Brendon pulled Ryan towards the kitchen, away from the Moment.

Long seconds later, there was rustling as Pete and Mikey stepped apart, and Pete said too loudly, “Okay, so, there’s soda in the fridge if you want it, and coffee in the pot because we have to keep Mikey plied with caffeine at all times.” In a few seconds, everyone was in motion, breaking through the awkward, tense air.

Even though Pete jumped around, getting them all to “help” making “dinner,” it was really Mikey who got most of the credit. Pete’s pancakes kept getting burnt because he couldn’t stand still in front of the stove, Ryan’s were underdone because he fussily tried to take them off every few seconds, lest they burn like Pete’s, and Brendon—well, the one he made was alright, but he kind of spilled batter everywhere. Mikey, though, could apparently turn out perfect pancakes effortlessly.

Once they were all sitting down around the little table, Brendon all-but moaning at how good real pancakes with butter and syrup tasted, Mikey admitted, “That’s the only thing I can cook, practically, besides coffee. Normally I don’t mess with the kitchen.”

It was the most Brendon had heard Mikey say at one time, and he felt strangely proud, as though he’d done something to make Mikey more comfortable with them.

Pete jumped in with, “Yeah, I like it when I can show him off,” before launching into a long-winded story about Mikey almost burning the bus down when he was trying to make scrambled eggs and sausage that had Brendon doubled over laughing by the end. Mikey gave them a chagrinned smile, but didn’t look particularly put-out about being laughed at, and Ryan actually chuckled, too.

To Ryan’s reaction, Brendon thought, I made that possible.

After dinner, in a very domestic way, Ryan offered to help Pete with dishes. Five minutes later, Brendon heard them discussing some novel that they’d both read, Pete making loud commentaries that had soap bubbles flying through the air, and Ryan shyly venturing quiet opinions of his own. While that was going on, Mikey gave Brendon a “tour,” including pointing out which bunks were free for him and Ryan.

They played Pictionary that night. Pictionary. Brendon was struck by how—overly normal a thing to be doing Pictionary seemed, but Pete insisted that, “We’ve only had the two of us for so long, and now we have enough for teams.” Brendon was also delighted when he discovered that even though Ryan didn’t know how to play, he picked it up quickly, had a great vernacular, and was a decent drawer.

By the time they went to bed, Brendon was happier than he’d been in a long time, particularly when, as soon as they’d dropped into the bunk, Ryan hovered over him, bracketing Brendon’s shoulders with his arms and saying heatedly, “I think it’s later, now.”

 

  
When Brendon rolled over the next morning, mumbling Ryan’s name, his hands and words fell on empty air. Immediately his eyes snapped open, and he breathed out, “Ryan?” again. There hadn’t been a single morning since he’d met Ryan that Brendon hadn’t woken up next to him, and the sinking in the pit of his stomach coincided with the innate knowledge that Ryan had not just gone out to the bus lounge, or the kitchen, or the car.

Ryan was gone. Completely.

Eyes wide and dry, Brendon rose shakily to his feet and walked out of the bunk area. Mikey and Pete were curled together on the couch watching a movie—it was something set in Victorian London that made Brendon think of Ryan even more. “Ryan’s gone,” he greeted them, and both their heads snapped around. Mikey, Brendon noted, looked particularly sympathetic.

“Sometimes they get what they needed,” Pete said quietly, as if this were normal, “and then they go.”

Brendon turned around, clenching his hands on the edge of the countertop and taking great, shuddering breaths. He stayed there until a pair of warm hands closed onto him, one on his upper arm, and the other cupping the back of his neck. “Hey.” Pete’s voice was warm and careful, and Brendon was instantly resentful. “Hey, Brendon, you’ll get by. You’ll get out of here too.”

Jerking away from Pete’s kindness, Brendon said, “What do you know? If it’s so easy, why are you still here?”

He was off the bus in record time, but not so fast that he missed the spasm of pain flickering over Pete’s face.

Though he started out jogging, he’d slowed down to a walk by the time he got to the playground. It was tiny, just a circle of tanbark around a slide and a couple swings. Brendon dropped down onto one of the swings, facing away from the direction of the bus and trailing his toes in the woodchips. “Fuck you, Ryan,” Brendon said into the silence, “You never even got to the sea.”

Moments stretched by, and just as he was starting to think he ought to go back, he heard footsteps approaching slowly. He was expecting Pete, so it was a surprise when Mikey, looking fragile and lost without Pete plastered to him, sat down on the swing next to him.

“Pete won’t ever leave,” Mikey said without preamble. Brendon’s face must have showed his shock, because Mikey sighed and added, “I won’t either.”

“Why?” Brendon asked finally, “How do you know that? Do you know how this all works?”

Smiling faintly, Mikey said, “Gerard thought he had it figured out. He thought it was a place for…for people who needed saving the most. He called it The Land of Lost Souls—he has a flair for the dramatic.”

“Wait,” Brendon interrupted, “Who’s Gerard? Where is he?”

“Gerard’s my brother. He’s not here anymore,” Mikey said flatly, and didn’t elaborate even when Brendon cocked his head questioningly.

Finally Mikey continued, “I don’t know if he ever believed this place was real. He always talked like we were living in a metaphor. He thought it was about healing yourself. Learning how not to self destruct.”

Unable to help interrupting again, Brendon protested, “But I did. Ryan! Ryan was all I needed, and now he’s gone. You have to get that! I mean, you and Pete—” He cut off, uncertain now. Mikey was still wearing his little partial smile.

“Yeah. I know. You’re so young,” Mikey said, sounding so tired that Brendon wasn’t even offended. “Sometimes, contrary to popular ideas, love isn’t all you need in order to be whole. Sometimes you have to choose between what you want most and what you actually need. And…sometimes you’re never going to stop making the wrong decision. You know, it gets hard to remember there’s more in the world.”

There was an ache to his words that told Brendon that there was far more to it than Mikey had actually said. “Oh,” he replied, voice small. “I really miss him.”

“Yeah,” Mikey agreed, and Brendon thought, Gerard.

“I think he was waiting for me and I saved him,” Brendon added, and Mikey’s smile grew a fraction wider.

“Can I stay with you guys?” Brendon finally asked, feeling pathetic.

“Of course,” Mikey replied, and then (Brendon was starting to think Mikey was as enigmatic as Ryan), “until you decide to leave.”

 

Brendon fell into an easy pattern of life with Pete and Mikey. They were the worst kind of predictable, almost always cuddling or having loud sex, except for how Brendon always knew that any second they could be yelling at each other at the top of their lungs, arguments that always ended in sex and fierce promises of forever.

In the mornings, Brendon would go running, and make coffee when he got back. During the day, he read a lot of Ryan’s books, and then, when he remembered them, Ryan’s notebooks. Most of them were journals, Ryan rambling esoterically about what he’d thought or done, if it was distinctive. Sometimes there were short stories, full of pretentious language and imagery that made Brendon smile fondly even as his throat tightened. The characters were predictable and flat, the product of someone who had mainly known people through literature.

When Brendon got to an entry that read, The emptiness was about to take over, when the sun rose. Traded silk for skin and felt something real, he realized that he was reading about himself.

Half the time, Brendon had no idea what Ryan was actually saying, but that didn’t matter. It was enough to have a piece of him at all.

On the last page that had writing (Brendon reached it eternities after Ryan was gone, or maybe only weeks), there was a poem. It was too wordy, and the rhythm seemed off, until Brendon realized that the little marks in the margin were actually notes—vocal cues—and it was actually a song that Ryan had written, not a poem at all. 

Brendon read it over and over, memorizing, and eventually climbed out of his bunk. He padded down the hall to the kitchen, where Mikey and Pete were giggling as Pete held a camera at arm’s length to take pictures of their faces pressed together: grinning, snarling, kissing.

“I’m leaving,” Brendon told them baldly, and they looked up, sobering, but devoid of surprise.

Pete got up, them, walking over to take Brendon’s face in his hands in a painfully familiar gesture. Carefully he kissed Brendon’s forehead, then pressed his own to Brendon’s and said, “Hey, good luck. If you ever need anything, we’ll always be here.”

Leaning gratefully into the touch, Brendon said, “Thanks. I’ll remember.” He hesitated, then threw his arms around Pete, who hugged back just as hard. Finally Pete let go, saying wistfully, “You better leave before I decide to keep you.”

With a watery smile, Brendon nodded and withdrew. He hadn’t realized how hard it would be to say goodbye to the only people he knew of that were left in the world. Or maybe just to Mikey and Pete.

On the way to the door, he paused next to Mikey, and they shared a significant look. “It’s what I want,” Mikey told him eventually, and Brendon nodded.

It surprised him when Mikey gave a crooked smile and opened his arms, but Brendon moved willingly into the embrace. It was almost like hugging Ryan, all long, bone-thin limbs and awkward angles—Brendon sniffed a tiny bit against Mikey’s shoulder, but Mikey didn’t comment, just tightened his arms a little.

“I hate goodbyes,” he could hear Pete mutter behind them, “I don’t do goodbyes.”

When Mikey gave Brendon’s back a final quick pat and let go, rather than goodbye, Brendon said, “I love you guys.”

Mikey nodded solemnly, and Pete choked out, “Yeah, us too.”

Without looking back, Brendon pushed open the door of the bus and walked across the parking lot to where the purple van was parked, keys dangling in the ignition.

Brendon drove somewhat aimlessly for somewhere around an hour and a half in what he thought (hoped) was the right direction with his windows rolled all the way down, until he started seeing signs for the coast. He blasted bands that Ryan liked—The Misfits, My Chemical Romance, Smashing Pumpkins—until he could actually smell the salt in the air. Another hour was spent driving along the coastline until he found the right place.

There had been a half-formed idea in his mind that he’d find a white sand beach with crystal clear water, but that idea turned out to be entirely fantasy. East coast beaches were clearly nothing like the ones he’d been on when he was fourteen and his family had taken a vacation to Maui. To top it off, it had begun to rain in fitful bursts and pauses.

Eventually, Brendon just pulled over at a scenic overlook and got out of the car, sheltering Ryan’s notebook from the rain showers under his hoodie. He climbed up onto the guardrail and hooked one ankle around it, thudding his other foot against the metal as he looked out over the waves crashing into the rocks below him, whipped by the wind. Unbidden, for the first time since Ryan had disappeared, he started to really cry, full-on choking sobs ripping from his throat.

“I don’t believe in you, okay?” he shouted, “and if I did, I’d hate you, because you took Ryan away! Fuck you.” The rain mingled with his crying, and he thought that Ryan would have liked this place better than any pretty beach.

When his tears ran out, he squinted out across the gray water, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. “Okay,” he said finally, “I would forgive you, if you existed. Because you freed Ryan. Even though I miss him.” 

Pulling out the notebook, Brendon flipped through it until he found Ryan’s song. The page was immediately spotted with raindrops, but he ignored that and held it up so that he could see the meticulously printed words, and then he started singing to the empty ocean.

He actually sang through Ryan’s song five times, making little changes every time until he was satisfied with his rendition. By that time, the rain had stopped, and he sat on the guardrail for a while longer, watching the waves crash and ebb, singing a couple other things, and finally he went back to the van and fell asleep in the backseat.

 

In the morning, he was actually less surprised than he expected that he probably should be when he turned over and came face to face with bright digital numbers slipping from 8:04 to 8:05. His bedroom door cracked open and he heard, “Brendon? Are you awake?”

“Mom?” he mumbled, caught halfway between sleep and wakefulness, still. Everything felt slow and dreamy, and he wasn’t sure if he was imagining things or not.

“Oh, good, you’re responding.” His mom sounded cheerful, but crisp, and she added, “It’s time for church. Your dad isn’t mad anymore, but you do have to go.”

Pushing aside the covers and running his hands through his (shorter, clean-cut) hair, Brendon stood shakily and said, “Yeah, okay. I’m just going to go shower, and I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

His mom paused in the doorway, smiling back over her shoulder and replied, “Good.”

Just like that, life restarted.

 

Brendon wasn’t sure why he expected Ryan to be a part of his real life now, but for the first week, he went around waiting for something to happen, for Ryan to show up. He continuously berated himself for not finding out Ryan’s address (other than Macys), or a phone number—something. After that, he realized that he didn’t even know if Ryan existed. He didn’t bother trying to tell anyone what had happened, or ask about it, because it was pointless. No time had passed, apparently, and if it weren’t for his crystal clear memories of everything, he would have thought it was a very extended dream.

He started getting on with life. He mainly found ways to get out of church functions other than chorus and the obligatory Sunday services. His piano teacher commented on his huge, sudden improvements. Brent, from school, asked if he wanted to try out for a band, and Brendon shrugged and nodded. 

When he actually went for his first practice, Brent took him in the side door of someone’s garage, and Brendon was too busy looking at all the instruments to actually take stock of the people inside, at first. Then someone drily said, “Hey.”

Head snapping up at the voice—that voice—Brendon spun to the side, to where Ryan was leaning against a washing machine, casual as fuck. It was definitely him, even though he looked about a year younger than the last time Brendon had seen him, his hair was longer, he wasn’t wearing any make-up, and he had on tight jeans and a Fall Out Boy T-shirt. “Ryan,” he breathed out.

Ryan didn’t smile, just cocked his head slightly. “Yeah,” he said tonelessly, “Good guess. What can you play?”

Blankly, Brendon stared at him, waiting for some kind of recognition to kick in. When it didn’t, he swallowed and blurted out, “Can I use your bathroom?”

On the way out, as Brendon drove Brent home in the purple van, Brent explained in a low voice to not worry about Ryan, he wasn’t a very open person with anyone other than Spencer and his LiveJournal communities, but it didn’t mean he didn’t like you. He just had a terrible home life where he was alternately smacked around and alienated by his father. Brendon listened carefully, nodding in the right places, and wished that the world hadn’t started up again. He wanted his Ryan, or none at all.

Three practices later, as Brendon sat on a metal stool with his guitar and Spencer counted off the opening strains of Dead On Arrival, Brendon surreptitiously watched Ryan’s blank, unsmiling face out of the corner of his eye. It was an expression he’d seen over and over when he’d met Ryan the first time, years or days or never ago, and he wanted to kiss it off Ryan’s face.

Instead, when Ryan started to sing, without thinking, Brendon did also, familiar words rolling off his tongue quietly, but not so much that the others couldn’t hear him. 

Ryan stopped first, turning around slowly, a breath-taking smile overtaking his face, and Brendon’s pulse picked up.

“You can sing,” he said, seemingly oblivious to the shocked looks that Spencer and Brent were shooting at him as he grinned at Brendon like Brendon had hung the moon (or saved his life), “I never knew…that’s amazing. You’re always singing, from now on. Always.”

“Ryan, are you sure—” Spencer started, but Ryan cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“I’m sure, I’m sure,” he said, not taking his eyes off of Brendon.

After practice, Brendon hung around, helping to pack up, and when Ryan shyly smiled at him from across the room, Brendon went right over and gave him a hug, to Ryan’s obvious surprise.

A moment passed, and then Ryan sank into the touch and said wonderingly, “I feel like…” He trailed off, and then finished, simply, “Thanks. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Yeah,” Brendon said, “I am too.”


End file.
